Breaking down eCommerce marketing by figuring out product-channel fit | Andrew Silard (Openstore, Grove Collaborative)

Andrew is the Head of Consumer Growth at OpenStore where he leads the team responsible for managing and growing OpenStore's portfolio of Shopify brands. His team is building a proprietary stack across data, engineering, marketing and retail management.

OpenStore provides liquidity to Shopify entrepreneurs that drive at least $1M in GMV or Gross Merchandise Value. They now own or work with 40 brands and over 100K products. Prior to OpenStore, Andrew was SVP, Marketing at Grove Collaborative, where he built the Consumer Marketing team and served as a member of the executive team from Series A through IPO. He was also a VP at QuinStreet, where he incubated an email marketing business that grew to $10M in its second year, and held a variety of management & operational roles.  

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We discuss: 

• The tailwinds and headwinds that Shopify entrepreneurs face 
• Channel make up for different types of ecommerce companies 
• Factors to consider for unit economics and measurement
• Optimization levers for Google and Meta

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We cover: 

OpenStore: https://open.store/

Increasing revenue for Jack Archer, a clothing brand: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-openstore-increased-jack-archers-revenue-from-1m-10m-silard%3FtrackingId=S%252BASEL%252FcYp95KMwF50Te8Q%253D%253D/?trackingId=S%2BASEL%2FcYp95KMwF50Te8Q%3D%3D

Various ways to increase profitability: https://open.store/blog/best-practice-shopify-profitability-customer-support

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Where to find Andrew: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsilard/

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Where to find Patrick: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcmoran/

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(02:49) What's driving lower barriers to entry for starting an e-commerce store but much more difficult to scale  

(06:22) The common two different models that have different channel mix complexions  

(10:39) Where Wayfair started and where they've graduated to as an example of the progression of certain companies 

(15:00) Having the expertise to operate efficiently given the plethora of tools out there 

(16:01) How to think about unit economics, especially given VC funding levels 

(20:46) Variables to consider with targeting existing users   

(22:32) When creative optimization becomes the main lever   

(26:40) When feed optimization is the main lever and using AI for dynamic overlays 

(28:32) Google and Meta has made it easier for SMBs to play in paid, but still comes with optimization shortcomings 

(29:55) Using an effective attribution model   

(33:42) What OpenStore does for Shopify entrepreneurs and the direction of the company 

(39:49) The challenges that comes with the interoperability of tooling 

(41:51) Where to find Andrew!